My son and I watched the movie "All the President's Men" the other night. It was part of a quarantine effort that also included "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "Three Days of the Condor," about CIA corruption. 

This practice is not unusual. We have family chats on Facetime about West Wing episodes and the hidden meaning in the relationship between Press Secretary C.J. Craig and Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman. So let's start from there. 

For those younger than 50, "All the President's Men," book and film, is the story of the Watergate scandal of the 1970s. Two Washington Post reporters - Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein - stumble on a massive conspiracy engineered by then-President Richard Nixon's staff to sabotage the Democrats and ensure Nixon's 1972 re-election. Nixon knew about the dirty tricks, approved all sorts of crimes, and was on the verge of impeachment when cooler heads prevailed, and he resigned in disgrace.

Watergate, along with the Vietnam War, destroyed the last thread of innocence about American exceptionalism after World War II. It led to other nasty disclosures of corruption and criminality. The CIA had been overthrowing governments and conducting LSD mind control experiments on unsuspecting Americans. The FBI had wiretapped Martin Luther King Jr. and sent him anonymous letters urging him to kill himself. The anti-communist fear that drove us to the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis led us to war in Vietnam and Cambodia, full of lies and deceit. Jim Crow was alive and well in the South.

This all came out because of courageous members of Congress, a press corps protected by the First Amendment, a Supreme Court that refused to be intimidated by evil-doers, and protesting Americans who risked their lives and careers to do the right thing. And it marked the Ivy League types then running the government - the so-called Best and the Brightest - as mediocre at best.

So we finish the film, my favorite of all time, and my son, all 29 years of him, pops the question. 

What keeps you optimistic about the American experiment when you know how deeply flawed this country is?

Gulp.

After days of thinking about this, I still don't have a good answer. But here is a first try. 

My answer unspooled over a few days - some that night after the movie and then the next day via a family conversation. I am putting them together here as best I can. 

The United States is an experiment. It's about aspiration. The country was founded by white men who created a system that advantaged them. And the history is loaded with terrible deeds: slavery, assassination, CIA secret crimes, the Iraq war, general inequality, and ongoing racial and gender discrimination. It is all terrible.

But there is something there that keeps me going. It's not blind loyalty or belief in the system of government. No. I support removing weapons from the belts of police in some cities. I support Black Lives Matter. I support reparations for African Americans and a full apology from the government. I support Colin Kaepernick. I think the national anthem should not be played at sporting events. I believe the Pledge of Allegiance is wrong and should be barred from schools. And I believe the mere existence of billionaires is a crime against society. Yet, I consider myself a patriot, an American. 

My mother taught me to be skeptically idealistic. The Constitution, especially the amendments written after the Civil War, contains the bones of something great. It created a country and a system that is sort of better than anywhere else. 

Here's where it gets complicated. I no longer believe that the U.S. is "better than anywhere else." Canada, Europe, and the Scandanavian countries have eaten our lunch. Their societies are better educated, healthier, and happier. 

With our greedy emphasis on growth and consumption over happiness and fairness, we have lost our way. We threw our middle class over the side so we could worship tech billionaires with no moral compass. We have allowed our media to be taken over by massive corporations like Comcast, Fox, and AT&T with little oversight. And we tolerate our citizens sleeping in the streets of our cities, be they small or large. 

My son: "My generation is not idealistic at all. We do not believe the government has our best interest at heart. We believe that this is a capitalist state, and the government is interested in its own betterment. All the evidence points to that - especially in the last four years."

Fair enough. 

My daughter weighs in on Facetime: "The whole idea of government and the good side of the U.S. is about trying." 

Yes. 

Stacked against the long list of crimes and ills of U.S. history, there is still something in the words and deeds, a reason to keep pushing in the right direction. We just landed a new rover on Mars. A 34-year-old has the temerity to run for secretary-general of the United Nations. A niece teaches in a public school in Oakland. There is a county prosecutor in Burlington, Vermont changing the archaic, unjust criminal justice system. New forms of journalism are springing up everywhere. A good person won the presidency and is pushing in the right direction. 

The ideals are good and right. And if we don't keep pushing for them, what else is there? If we give up, we are doomed. Why get out of bed in the morning? The alternative is ruin. It is Thomas Hobbes. I have no other choice. 

My son: "It is kind of like recycling. We live in a culture of apathy and ADD. If I don't do it, the world is fine. If everybody doesn't do it, we are doomed."

AHHHH! E Pluribus Unum.

Back to "All the President's Men." 

It's the duality of America. We are Woodward and Bernstein and Nixon all at the same time. And everything you learned throughout a life tells you it is better to be Woodward and Bernstein, or Luke Skywalker or Bob Moses or Gloria Steinem or Greta Thunberg - or the street sweep driver, the bureaucrat in state government redesigning a recycling program. It is a never-ending effort to be one of the good people. 

It's the only choice. The alternative is not getting out of bed in the morning. 

My wife adds this to the conversation, "You live in the world you create." 

James Baldwin fled for Paris when he could no longer stomach the hatred and bigotry here. But he eventually returned to New York. 

In the end, goodness is better. 

My daughter adds she would never live anyplace else. "This is home."

No easy answer. But a discussion worth having, to keep trying in our own small and insignificant ways because the trying is significant, and this is home, and we create our reality.